One More Browser

It took me quite a while to get onboard with Safari when it was originally released for OS X: the prospect of having yet another browser to debug didn’t endear Apple to many developers. But Safari on Windows is another story entirely.

Assuming the rendering engine is consistent (I wonder how it will handle anti-aliasing) this is a huge windfall for Safari users on the Mac because even moderate adoption on the PC means more attention payed to the rendering engine’s quirks which will result in a better experience for all.

But what’s good for users is even better for Apple. The iPhone doesn’t have an SDK. Instead Apple is encouraging developers to write standards-base web apps. That will work in Safari. On the Mac. On the PC. And on the iPhone.

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I have heard some boos and hisses about iPhone apps using AJAX based Web apps but I think this is great news and a brilliant move on Apples part.

The implementation appeared as sexy as any of the other pre-packaged iPhone apps and this move means that the developer pool will be massive right away. This also means that simple custom apps will be possible to create with very little time investment for anyone with even moderate skills in modern Web development (though maybe not as sexy) and what should result in fairly easy support for web apps that are already on using these technologies such as Basecamp and of course Mint.

Web applications may not be the solution for everything on the desk top but they are very well suited for the type of apps (and their needs) that you would find on a phone.

Of course, safari on windows will be a big boon as well, especially if it can pull more market share from IE and put in in the arena of more standards compliant browsers.

I’ve spent the past week using Camino, tired of Firefox’s performance issues. I had to give up extensions, but wasn’t ready to give up tabs to start using Safari on a daily basis.

I’m happy about this.

As for the iPhone and the SDK…Widgets are essentially CSS/XHTML/AJAX, and iPhone apps look an awful lot like Dashboard Widgets. The web app platform/SDK for iPhone seems to have been the plan all along. Convergence based on the web.

I quickly downloaded the Safari Beta for Windows. Works smoothly so far. The only real problem I’ve encountered is that none of the Ma.gnolia bookmarklets work. I wonder if any other bookmarklets work.

Also, did you notice that Apple completely revamped their website? Slick stuff with some great hover effects in the outer columns.

Safari is my main browser. I love it. The only problem I face is that it renders my CSS perfectly, then I have to go troubleshoot for IE and Firefox (yes, it does things wrong every once in a while). I’m happy Apple is offering Safari on Windows - and as far as Safari on the iPhone - HELL YA!

This means I can start developing and transitioning my customers apps to work on the iPhone immediately. All I have to do is make a browser-chosen CSS file. I’m stoked

Another thought: Safari uptake on the PC side will be very much tied to the quality of integration with Windows’ web media formats. Apple will have to do some work on that end; hopefully we’ll see the fruits of their labour on the Mac as well.

I’m unimpressed, honestly. Bookmark import did not work for me, which is extremely surprising given that Apple goes out of the way to tout the feature. Firefox just works too perfectly for me to bother with a beta of an inherently less accommodating browser, nice as it is for a Mac-user-to-be to get a taste of the OS. The rest of my thoughts are here.

Has anyone else noticed that default text rendering on the new Safari 3 beta is far prettier than than other browsers? Helvetica, baby!

Sorry to burst your bubble Dave but I think you’re still looking at Arial, just anti-aliased differently. Here’s a comparison, first in CSS then in an image. In my copy of Safari on Windows, the Arial and Helvetica lines are identical and Helvetica Neue renders as the default serif. See also: How to spot Arial.

So true :) Wether Safari on Windows will be a small or a big succes, it’s a win-win situation for both Apple and Webdev’s.

Apple will have an “x” percentage of PC-users that want to switch to OSX. They also make more money out of it since the searchengine in Safari is Google’s (who pays Apple for each search a user makes in Safari). Plus there a fair chance that we’ll see more well-coded websites for all platforms.

Sorry to burst your bubble Dave but I think you’re still looking at Arial, just anti-aliased differently.

Hm, that’s odd. I checked it out on my Mac with the Web Inspector (that’s now conveniently available in Safari) and it definitely said the text was Helvetica. Specifically what I was looking at was a Django admin page that wasn’t able to find its stylesheets due to some errant settings. The background color was a very light gray and the font was Helvetica/Arial.

I checked it on Firefox and Camino and both used a white background and Times New Roman.

It’s interesting because the ‘Standard Font’ setting in Safari preferences is still Times New Roman, but it’s using Helvetica instead.

Oh, I finally realized what you were looking at, Shaun. I see now I wasn’t very specific. You were looking at what Safari uses when you specify simply “sans-serif” in the CSS for an element (right?). Now it’s all making sense. :) I was looking at a completely unstyled page.